Socialist insecurity
Subtitle: pensions and the politics of uneven development in China
By: Mark W. Frazier
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Ithaca
Language: eng
Number of pages: 210
ISBN-13: 9780801448225
Description: "In Socialist Insecurity, Mark W. Frazier explores pension policy in the People's Republic of China, arguing that the government's push to expand pension and health insurance coverage to urban residents and rural migrants has not reduced, but rather reproduced, economic inequalities. He explains this apparent paradox by analyzing the decisions of the political actors responsible for pension reform: urban officials and state-owned enterprise managers. Frazier shows that China's highly decentralized pension administration both encourages the "grabbing hand" of local officials to collect large amounts of pension and other social insurance revenue and compels redistribution of these revenues to urban pensioners, a crucial political constituency." "More broadly, Socialist Insecurity shows that the inequalities of welfare policy put China in the same quandary as other large uneven developers - countries that have succeeded in achieving rapid growth but with growing economic inequalities. While most explanations of the formation and expansion of welfare states are derived from experience in today's mature welfare systems, developing countries such as China, Frazier argues, provide new terrain to explore how welfare programs evolve, who drives the process, and who sees the greatest benefit."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Local coalitions, uneven growth, and national welfare politics; title: Pathways to pensions; title: Resolving the puzzles of China's pension reforms; title: Urban governments, social insurance, and rights to revenue; title: How employers shaped China's new welfare regime; title: Public opinion and pensions.